Flow Nonfiction

In 2014, Deluxe Corporation’s Chief Brand & Communications officer approached Flow with a unique challenge: create a content campaign that would reposition the 100 year-old company and generate visibility among a field of highly-funded competitors. Flow’s answer was the “Small Business Revolution,” a campaign that profiled 100 small businesses across America through 88 photo essays and 12 mini-documentaries, supported by digital, out-of-home, and print advertising. The year-long initiative maintained a constant pace of publishing two stories per week across all sites, building a loyal audience of small business owners and their patrons who came to see Deluxe as a champion of small business. It culminated in the premiere of a short-documentary film in Deluxe’s hometown of Minneapolis, where the Governor declared Deluxe’s anniversary as “Small Business Day” in Minnesota.

Overall the campaign earned more than 1.6 Billion Media impressions (including 250MM social media impressions) and 11 times its investment in earned media, and has already won an AVA Platinum award for the Flow-designed website and a Gold award for Digital Marketing / Interactive Brand Experience.